Liberation movement becomes pompous

[dav...@agent.com]

Election Shows Many South Africans Losing Faith in ‘Pompous’ A.N.C.
By NORIMITSU ONISHI, AUG. 7, 2016, NY Times

CHANTELLE, South Africa — A week before South Africa’s local
elections on Wednesday, the Zithas held a family meeting inside
their entertainment room to decide how to vote. Loyal backers of
the African National Congress in every election since the end of
apartheid, the family decided it was time for a change.

Now, on a leisurely Sunday morning, as his wife & daughter got
ready for church, Danny Zitha, 61, a former high school teacher,
said the long-governing A.N.C. had left him disillusioned because
of its corruption, arrogance and incompetence. He will never go
back, he said. “Not at all, as long as I’m alive, sorry,” he said,
adding with a laugh, “Maybe after death.”

The A.N.C., which was the party of Nelson Mandela & helped free
South Africa from white-minority rule, suffered its worst losses
ever at the polls in the municipal elections last week. Unrivaled
for the past two decades, the party lost control of two black-
majority cities, including the capital, Pretoria, in what many
believe is a profound change in how race & the legacy of apartheid
influence South African politics.

The party’s decline was especially steep in the biggest cities,
with many black, middle-class voters in places like Chantelle, a
suburb of Pretoria, turning against it. Twenty-two years after the
end of apartheid, such voters appeared more concerned with mundane
matters like good governance & taxes than with the party’s heroic
liberation past.

The emergence of real alternatives for voters, & possibly the
growing accountability of political parties, are positive steps
for South Africa’s democracy, analysts and even A.N.C. officials
have said. In Pretoria, the main opposition party, the Democratic
Alliance, defeated the A.N.C. by two % points. The A.N.C.’s share
of the vote fell to 41% from 55% in the last local elections, in '11.

In the voting district including Chantelle, once an all-white
community that is now about 90% black, the A.N.C.’s share of the
vote plummeted to 40% from 69% in '11.

In many ways, the shifting dynamics inside Chantelle reflect larger
forces — a growing black middle class in a rapidly urbanizing
country — that are detrimental to the A.N.C., which, especially
under Pres. Jacob Zuma, has relied on patronage to maintain power.

As the election results began trickling in last week, A.N.C.
officials said they would engage in “introspection.” But examples
from the rest of the continent are not encouraging: Few liberation
movements that assumed power have been able to transform themselves
with the changing times and needs.

Mr. Zitha and his wife, who is also a high school teacher, moved
to Chantelle from Mamelodi, an impoverished township, in 1994.
They were one of the first black families in an area that had
been restricted to whites under apartheid. Now, Mr. Zitha points
to his immediate neighbors on his block of detached homes: a govt
worker & a prison warden on one side; a govt worker, a lawyer & a
high school teacher on the other side — all solid members of the
black middle-class. Sensible cars like Toyotas are parked in his
garage & those of his neighbors, though some Mercedes-Benzes can
also be spotted in Chantelle.

“It’s a popular car here, even though I feel it’s quite heavy to
maintain a Mercedes-Benz for a middle-class person like myself,”
Mr. Zitha said. ”You’re just pretending to be what you’re not
supposed to be.”

In all the previous national & local elections since 1994, Mr.
Zitha, his wife and their two older children, after they came of
age, voted for the A.N.C. Even so, Mr. Zitha became increasingly
dissatisfied with the party’s stewardship of the economy, its
upkeep of Chantelle and its culture of corruption under Mr. Zuma.
“They’re driving 4x4s, Range Rovers, all those fancy cars,” he
said of A.N.C. officials. “Those guys are pompous. They’re just
working for themselves and their close relatives.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, it was the Zithas’ youngest child who
began questioning the family’s loyalty to the A.N.C. Tshegofatso
Zitha, 21, an electrical engineering student, is a “born-free,”
as black South Africans born after the end of apartheid are
called. When she was 15, Ms. Zitha recalled, she learned in
school about rape, & began worrying about the large, open field
next to her street. Criminals often hid in that field, robbing
people of their cellphones. Burglars broke into the Zithas’ house
five times over the years. Finding the local A.N.C. official
unresponsive, she and some other young women in the area began
to carry whistles.

“I thought it wasn’t fair because we voted the A.N.C. into leader-
ship here, but we had to find other ways to stay safe,” Ms. Zitha
said. She also looked at the adjacent ward, which had been led
for some time by the Democratic Alliance. “That place, it’s clean,
it’s safe,” she said. “That’s what we want.”

Voting for the first time in 2014, Ms. Zitha backed the Economic
Freedom Fighters, a leftist group that finished 3rd in last week’s
voting. The rest of her family voted that year for the A.N.C.
She waited until mid-2015 before going to work on her parents and
older siblings. “I wanted to see if the A.N.C. would do anything
that would benefit any of us in any way,” she said. “So I asked my
family, ‘Do you see any difference?’ And they said, ‘No.’” And so
by the time the family got together before the latest election,
the Zithas had made up their minds. Mr. Zitha was particularly
upset, because he thought the local A.N.C.-led government had
failed to provide good services despite rising property taxes.

“Look at it — this is too much,” he said, holding a monthly bill
for about $80 in taxes and municipal fees. The Zithas decided to
vote for the Economic Freedom Fighters, though they also liked
the Democratic Alliance, as did many of their neighbors. One of
them, Bongo Matjila, 58, who is also a high school teacher, drove
by in his Ford pickup. “We’re friends, we’re brothers, even though
we voted for different parties,” Zitha said, as the two neighbors
bantered in his driveway. “We’ve got a common enemy” Mr. Matjila
said. “Yeah, if the enemy is this man, we must try hard to get
him out of the city,” Zitha said. “And we got him out.”

An hour later, just a few blocks away, a black Mercedes van pulled
into a driveway, containing three A.N.C. supporters active in ward
politics. All were from families with deep ties to the A.N.C., &
they said they would never quit the party. “I’m used to eating
pap,” said one of them, Mogomotsi Mogomotsi, 21, who owns a
construction & supply company, referring to the ground corn that
is South Africa’s staple.

Goms Matabane, 24, who was wearing an A.N.C. baseball cap, said he
was extremely disappointed by the election results. “But I’m not
really surprised,” he added, “because I’ve been hearing a lot of
people saying they’ve lost faith in the A.N.C.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/world/africa/election-shows-many-south-africans-losing-faith-in-pompous-anc.html